I wonder why they didn't just sell it as an open android device to begin with. Would it have cost them any more? It certainly would have generated 10x the buzz with all the additional features. Would supporting it be any more than what is required for a phone?

I'm guessing it's a support issue. If playing around with the root account on the device was an official feature, I can imagine then being inundated with support calls from people bricking their devices. By making it an unofficial feature that you have to void the warranty to access, then they can avoid all those pesky support issues.

They are selling it as an appliance, not a computing device. So they try to lock things down as much as possible, so people can't mess their device up by accident. Of course this limits it application as a more general device, but its not selling it as a general device.

I don't think it was limited it marketing appeal in any way though, this is being marketed to the general consumer, they are trying to take the Kindle head on. The number of people who would get excited by easy rooting are just not significant. I mean look at Nokia's n900 phone, you can gain root access just by typing sudo gainroot in a terminal. But I've never seen anyone make a big deal of this feature, people only make a big deal about rooting when your not allowed to, otherwise it gets ignored. Used by people who know what they are doing of course, but it certainly wouldn't get a story on os news.